


Sweet Home Yamagata

by rockbrigade



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29633856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockbrigade/pseuds/rockbrigade
Summary: "I want to meet Mizuki's family," he said, "it'll be fun," he said.After pestering Mizuki to allow him back to the Mizuki family home and orchard in Yamagata, Atobe gets quite a bit more than he bargained for.I started writing this something like 5?? years ago forachtungyallafter she gave me the prompt "basic exploratory mush is fine". Well, this is uh, exploratory.
Relationships: Atobe Keigo/Mizuki Hajime
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [achtungyall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/achtungyall/gifts).



Mizuki was rigid in his seat, gloved hands clasping and unclasping over and over again in his lap. His back pressed so hard into the leather backrest that it almost negated the kind of comfort delivered by such high-quality material and furnishings. Every now and again, he'd turn his neck in a stiff jolt -- Atobe could swear he heard it, like the key turning in a clockwork toy -- and the pallor of his face reflected dimly in the window. Mizuki pressed his nose as far as he dared to the glass, even lowering his designer sunglasses to peep over the top of them to get a better look, knowing that the privacy tinting on the outside kept him from being watched by those they passed. But only from those they passed. Atobe saw villagers on the roadside, shabby looking people, stop and follow the limo with their eyes, turning their heads as it drove by them. They pointed, dropped their mouths open, and then, in less than a second, they were gone. But Mizuki shifted at the window side, just as curious to get a glimpse of them as they were to get a glimpse of the car. 

"We can stop the car if you like, get out and greet them," Atobe let his head sink into the headrest, staring at the widescreen TV up ahead. Mizuki jumped and turned his head back from the window, crossing his arms against his chest and harrumphing. 

"Don't be absurd! I was… merely checking if they," he shuddered, "recognised me." He pushed his sunglasses up over the bridge of his nose. 

"You do know what privacy glass is for?" Atobe said. He picked up the remote for the TV and started flicking through channels. He stopped on a gross-out comedy movie, and Mizuki gasped in horror and snatched the remote from him and put on a period drama. 

"Yes, I know!! Still, they might have heard about my return from my father, or… well, even so! Perhaps someone let it slip, one can never be too careful!" He folded his arms again with a huff, leaving the remote close to his knee. Atobe leant over to take it, but Mizuki was too fast for him, and decided to keep it clenched tight in his hand, on the side furthest away from Atobe. 

He tried, Atobe tried, to become absorbed in the horse carriages and crinolines, but the whirlwind romance of a plain, virtuous kitten and an even more plain, even more virtuous Mr Darcy-type was so frightfully beige that he may as well have been staring at the throw rug. "Why did you insist on taking the limo, anyway? If riding through your hometown bothers you so much?" He turned his face towards Mizuki, who was watching the screen. Well, he faced the screen, and one might think he did so passively, thanks to his large sunglasses obscuring the most of his face, but his lips mouthed along to the dialogue of the gasping damsels in the movie, clearly absorbed. "Mizuki?"

Mizuki put out one hand and flicked it at Atobe, "shhh! Shush! And it is not becoming of a gentleman like yourself, to pain a lady's heart so! Oh, she finally said it!" 

"Mizuki." 

That clockwork toy noise again. Atobe saw his own gleaming reflection in Mizuki's sunglasses. "What is it now, Atobe-kun? You know I hate your filthy chopper-- DON'T you laugh at me, you horrid little boy! You know what I mean!" But Atobe doubled over in his seat. Mizuki's gloved hand reached over and smacked Atobe's knee. "Heavens, I hope you're not planning to insult my mother and father with obscenities like that!" He crossed his arms neatly, and Atobe calmed his breathing and straightened his back, biting on the inner of his cheeks to stop the laughter. "Good," Mizuki said, and then he sighed, "I detest flying -- and you must know it is tempting fate for the two of us to ride in the same helicopter. What would the company - no, the world at large! - what would anyone do if both you and I were taken cruelly before our time, in the same, most unfortunate accident!" Mizuki's fingertips were on his cheek, and his voice was hushed. 

"Mizuki… Maybe you're not aware, maybe you don't hear yourself, so I'll forgive you, but I think you should know you just really made it sound like you've tampered with my helicopter…" Atobe frowned at him, "You know what, to be safe, let me check your coat -- is my life insurance policy under there, or? Whatever have you done with it?" He reached over for the opening of Mizuki's coat, and Mizuki slapped at his arms and hands,

"Unhand me at once!!" He said, and the chauffer's eyes widened in the rear view mirror, and the privacy glass rolled upwards in a whir. But Atobe slipped back into his seat, and Mizuki gathered his coat about him, with the corners of his mouth downturned in most spectacular fashion. Wrinkles gathered about his lower lip, but Atobe thought better of mentioning it to him. "How could you suggest such a thing, in fact, how dare you! And how dare you manhandle me like that! You vile creature!" Mizuki huffed and turned his face back to the window. There was silence in the back of the car, but for the swooning of the period drama, until Mizuki muttered, "Perhaps I should have let you ride the helicopter after all!" 

Atobe sighed, and then he turned to the window. The streets were an unfamiliar blur of people pointing and staring at seeing a limo, not even a for-hire limo!!, rolling by. Then Atobe fished out the controller to the music player from the neat little pocket where the controllers were stored, and opened up the display on the screen. 

"What are you doing now?" Mizuki said, patience expended. 

"Searching for… let's see… search for tracks… Takes the built-in wifi a minute to load -- ah, there we are!" Atobe poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he keyed in the letters one at a time, and Mizuki gave a disgusted gargle, and hid his bespectacled eyes in shame. "M-I-Z--" 

"What! Don't tell me! Atobe-kun, you wouldn't!!" Mizuki sat forward in his chair, gaping at the screen.

"Why not? I thought your father was a talented -- and successful, you said -- singer? I wanted to give him a listen," and he clicked enter. The loading wheel spun on the screen, and Mizuki's voice was full of horror. 

"No! Give me that!" He lunged at Atobe, trying to wrest the remote from Atobe's hand without falling out of his seatbelt, but Atobe simply leaned towards his window, out of Mizuki's reach. So Mizuki stamped his foot on the floor, "Stop! The! Car!" he said, in time to the beat of his shoes, "Stop! This! Car! Turn around! At! Once!" The privacy window didn't even twitch, and soon, wailing instruments broke out over the speakers. Mizuki gave a final, defiant, "UGH!" before letting his face fall into his hands. 

"Enka?!" Atobe said, and Mizuki raised his face, letting his murderous stare escape over the bridge of his sunglasses, "N-no, I mean, Enka's kind of an art form, no matter how you think of it…" 

"Kind of?" Mizuki said, his teeth snapping as he spoke. 

"W-well it is, it's an art form!" Mizuki folded his arms, waiting and Atobe fumbled about in his mind for anything at all to comment with, "I mean… I liked… Farewell One Cedar…" 

"You put on father's music so that you might make fun of him!" Mizuki said, and Atobe shook his head but he knew Mizuki was right, "You're trying to embarrass me by mocking my father-- the same father who you're hoping will welcome you into his home only minutes from now! You're despicable!" 

Atobe opened his mouth… and closed it again. He raised the remote in the air with a lazy hand and silenced the music. Even the soundproofing of the interior was no match for the sound of the engine whirring, or at least not when the interior was so oppressively silent. "I was merely--" Atobe said, after some minutes, but Mizuki turned his face in a quick movement. 

"Save it!! You insisted upon this trip! Insisted! Nothing I could mention would dissuade you. You told me you were interested in my life and in my family," Mizuki was reeling off his points with a murderous stab of his gloved finger in Atobe's direction, "I told you that they are just simple folk, they live very humble and ordinary lives! But you, YOU--!" He leaned over and prodded Atobe's arm most offensively, "Oh no, YOU had to insist on seeing them! And for what reason? Why, oh why, pray tell?" Mizuki's livid white face was motionless, turned fixedly towards Atobe. Glaring, in all likelihood, but only from behind his large sunglasses. To Atobe, Mizuki looked for all the world like an giant, but incredibly furious fly, with huge black pools for eyes -- Atobe supplied the ravenous mandibles with his imagination. "So you could make a mockery of my poor family, just to insult me!" Mizuki folded his arms and turned his face away. 

"No, that's not--" 

"SILENCE, Atobe-kun. We are almost there, and I would hate for my parents to see me in such a state!" Mizuki pulled off his sunglasses with one hand and massaged the pinch of his forehead, just between his eyes.

Atobe sank into the seats and was silent for the rest of the journey. When the city roads started to quieten, Atobe sat forward and looked keenly out of the window. The dusk was falling over a long, dirt road, lined with hedges, and up ahead, slightly raised on a hill was a grand-looking house. It looked inviting enough, with its large, yellow-glowing windows that broke up the blue gloom around, but it was a little on the small side. It looked like it was about to be swallowed by the expanse of green fields and rows of trees - black skeletons now, against the early sunset - that surrounded it on all sides. And the leaves in the hedges suddenly became illuminated as the chauffer switched on the headlights, the car moving along slowly as if savouring Atobe's anticipation of the house beyond.

"Huh!" Mizuki said, in quiet wonder to himself, as they drove up, through the gate, passing the building on the way to an appropriate parking space. The door opened, and the porch light flicked on beside the door. A man stood on the front step, an old, tanned looking man wearing a turtleneck jumper with a smart blazer over the top; he leant against his doorframe, squinting out at them as they got out of the car. Mizuki straightened his back, neatened his coat, and then walked, head held up, toward the man. "Father!" He said, in greeting, and the man smiled, wrinkling his face to the extent that his eyes seemed to disappear in the creases. 

"Hajime! Your mother and I have missed you so much!" Mizuki's father opened his arms wide for a hug, but Mizuki cleared his throat, straightened his sunglasses, and extended his gloved hand for his father to shake. The which, his father did, but not without confusion, spelled out so clearly in the grey bushy caterpillar eyebrows that looked so stark against the tan of his skin. Atobe strode over, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other already extended toward Mizuki's father. "Oh, and you must be Keigo. May I call you that? Or would you prefer--?" 

"Sir, you should call me whatever you feel is comfortable," Atobe said, with his best schmooze. They shook hands, and Mizuki's father said,

"Keigo, then. Delightful to meet you! My wife is waiting inside, she's just dying to greet you. Please, come inside," he held the door open for them, and was about to follow them inside when the chauffer staggered after them, weighed down by suitcases. 

Atobe and Mizuki were shown into a large sitting room, where a small, glamorous woman with long raven-black hair that followed a gentle wave over her pale skin, was sat, wine glass in hand, perched on the edge of a sofa. She blinked slowly at them, her eyelashes fluttering, and then she let out a little shriek, "Hajime!? Oh, mummy's little darling, come here!" She put her wine glass onto a nearby table and waved her hands for Mizuki to come to her. He did, slowly, bending forward with as much grace as he could manage, only to have her wiry little arms circle around his back and push him powerfully into her chest. 

"Hello, mother," Mizuki said, in a voice that sounded drained. She was running her long, artificial but perfectly manicured nails in a delicate movement over his hair, crushing his head in just the right way to force his sunglasses to tilt diagonally over his nose. 

"Mummy missed you so much!" She said, through pursed lips, covered thickly in a deep purplish gloss, "how can you treat your mummy so badly, Hajime?" She released him just enough to catch his cheeks with the pads of her fingertips (and surely, in the thin tips of her nails, Atobe thought) and she frowned down at him, "You never call, you never write to me! Oh you wicked boy, always breaking mummy's heart!" She pinched Mizuki's nose, narrowly avoiding causing serious damage to his eyes thanks to his suddenly altogether practical sunglasses. 

"Sorry mother," Mizuki said, his voice squished and nasal. Mizuki's mother pulled her hand away with a graceful flick of her wrist, jutting her chest out as she did and showing Atobe a coy smile.

"And you must be the devastatingly handsome Atobe-kun," she held out her hand in a dainty way, and Atobe felt compelled to take it up and kiss her fingertips. Well, anything for a fan. "I'm always seeing you in the newspaper! You do look smashing on my baby darling's arm! You make such a magnificent trophy!" Atobe froze. Then he moved his mouth away from her hand and stood up straight. "Oh my, Hajime darling, you should have told me your little Atobe-kun was a sensitive soul," she blinked at Mizuki and her eyelashes fluttered like huge dark butterflies, "just look at his poor little face! Why," and she got to her feet, surprisingly tall in stylish black stiletto heels, "I could just pinch it!" and she did. Atobe felt his flesh filling the trough in the underside of her perfect false nails, and the pressure of its edges throbbed. 

"Lambkin, we call him Keigo," said Mizuki's father from the doorway. "I see you've met my beautiful wife," he said, with a warm smile. Mizuki's mother released Atobe's cheek… and then seeing the red blotches on his skin put her fingertips over her mouth and gasped, before reaching out to pat Atobe's face reassuringly. "Why don't you let me take your coats for you? I'll put them in the cloakroom." He stepped forward and reached out an arm, and Mizuki shrugged his fur-trimmed monstrosity off his shoulders, and was, by appearance, much smaller in an instant. Atobe removed his coat and laid it over the arm of Mizuki's father, who nodded and said, "I won't be a moment!" as he disappeared back into the hall.

"Keigo," Mizuki's mother said, putting her arms out towards him, but Atobe narrowed his eyes and stood his ground. Mizuki's father returned, rubbing his coarse, tanned hands together. 

"So, Hajime, Keigo. It must have been a long journey, and I'm sure dinner will be ready soon," he held one arm out of the doorway, as if to guide them, "why don't you follow me to the dining room, and we can talk over dinner?" Atobe glanced towards Mizuki's mother warily, but Mizuki passed him, nose held stiff in the air. 

"Thank you, father. Atobe-kun, if you would?" Mizuki said, looking out from under his eyelashes. Atobe gulped and followed him with heavy footsteps. 

There was a rustic, homely charm to their dining room. It wasn't just for dining; on the far wall was a large, old-fashioned stove, clearly a Western design, made new with the impression of vintage in its black metal frontage. All the cabinets around them were a beautiful orange-varnished pine, and the surfaces glimmered under the modern glow of the spotlighting above. At the centre of the room was a large table, with placemats already set up and a woodland-inspired centrepiece at its heart. Atobe entered to the sound of bubbling pans and a delicious smelling steam hung in the air, and it all seemed so reminiscent of a good-old-days that Atobe had never known, a simpler time, a simpler way to live, when one had but a single member of housekeeping staff to prepare the food and dining table as one busied oneself entertaining guests. 

"Mother, there are six places set at the dining table!" Mizuki said, as if this were a problem. His mother laid her talons on his shoulders, and her ever-pursed plump lips aimed to leave their mark on Mizuki's forehead. 

"Yes, pumpkin, because your sisters are on their way home as we speak! Oh, they're so excited to see you! And to meet your little boy toy over there," she said, throwing a wink over her shoulder at Atobe.

"Mother, how could you! I think you'll find I was quite specific about the arrangements Atobe-kun and I would require if we were to visit, and one of the foremost stipulations was--" 

"Hush, my darling, hush!" She placed her long, elegant finger upon his lips and silenced him, "it's simply too late to do anything about it. Your sisters are coming to see you, and that's that. But you won't upset mummy by causing a scene now would you? Not mummy's precious little Hajime?" She gave him a simpering look, and Mizuki grit his teeth and turned aside. She positioned herself behind him and guided him to a seat with a placemat in front of it. Once Mizuki was seated, she turned to Atobe, and gestured to the seat at Mizuki's left. "Keigo, if you would?" she said, with a giggle.

Mizuki's parents moved around the table, to the seats opposite Atobe and Mizuki; Mizuki's father pulled out a chair for his wife, and bowing his head in reverence. Mizuki's mother put her hand over her chest in affected surprise, and dropped into the chair with a dainty bending of her knees. Mizuki's father pushed the chair under the dining table without exerting any effort at all, and his wife gave a little whoop as she was pushed forward, clenching her hands into as much of a fist her nails would allow, and laughing. "You've got to, haven't you?" Mizuki's father said, looking straight into Atobe's eyes, "Can't help it when you're married to an absolute goddess like my wife!" 

And she patted at him softly, "Oh, stop!" she said, encouraging him. 

When they were all seated, a tired-looking woman -- obviously staff -- hobbled over with a choice of wines from which the hosts made their selection. The housekeeper put the bottle on the table, and shuffled away, leaving Mizuki's father to uncork it and pour the glasses. Atobe's eyes twitched, but nobody said anything about it. In fact, Mizuki's father was talking brightly about "the state of things," and being thoroughly obnoxious by ending with, "wouldn't you agree, Keigo?" and Atobe's brow creased under his irritated eyebrows as he tried to magic up an appropriate response. In the pause, Mizuki cleared his throat and elbowed Atobe right in the ribs. 

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean," Atobe said, and Mizuki's father nodded thoughtfully, but was apparently satisfied. Atobe's glass was filled with a respectable amount of wine and Atobe drank it, perhaps not with a respectable speed. 

"So, tell me again, how did you two meet?" Mizuki's mother said. She folded her hands together under her chin to give herself, what Atobe saw as the most horrendous behaviour a woman could ever enact, a false coquettish look. But she blinked brightly at the two of them. Atobe looked wistfully into his empty wine glass. 

"Actually, it was in middle school, wasn't it, Atobe-kun?" Mizuki was now regarding him with a smug little smile. 

"That's right?" Atobe said, not quite able to lose the questioning tone. Mizuki spluttered, or grunted, and then immediately did his best to pass it off as a soft giggle. 

"Oh how you love to tease me, Atobe-kun! Of course it was, when your school, Hyoutei academy," he nodded to his parents as he said it, to make sure they were following, "played against my very own St. Rudolph in the Tokyo prefectural tennis tournament!" Atobe frowned and leaned back in his seat. "It was singles 2, of the consolation match… I fought a good game but you managed to pull out a win at the last second…?" Mizuki's eyes slid to the side as he said that last phrase. 

"Hold up," Atobe said, "That was… that was you?" He pointed a finger at him and Mizuki swatted it down with disgust. Atobe laughed and turned to shrug at Mizuki's parents, but their faces were blank and unimpressed. Mizuki's mother coughed and swirled the wine around in her glass. 

"I'll thank you not to play these insufferable mind games with me in front of my parents," Mizuki said, crossing his arms and sticking his nose in the air, "Why, you sound surprisingly like a certain Fuji Syuusuke-kun when you speak to me with such an insolent tone!" Mizuki's parents leaned forward, nodding, giving noises of agreement. 

"Fuji Syuusuke? He played tennis in middle school didn't he?" Atobe frowned, and Mizuki reached out to slap the back of his hand. 

"Atobe-kun!!" His voice was as short as it was shrill, and it felt like the verbal equivalent of the stinging against Atobe's offended knuckles. He pulled his hand away and shook it loose, trying to regain some of the lost feeling. Mizuki gasped, and cleared his throat, and flicked his fingers towards his face, fanning himself. He picked up his wine glass and swallowed the contents in one go, and Mizuki's mother stood up at once with the bottle in her hand. 

"Shnookums, do you want mummy to pour you another glass?" She said, through those pursed lips, and Mizuki nodded with an angry energy. She fished up his glass and refilled it, pressing it into his shaking hands, "that's it, drink up!" she said, as if she were feeding milk to a malnourished hedgehog. 

"So, now I'm curious, Keigo," Mizuki's father looked at him through his scrunched up eyes, squished under his heavy eyebrows, and yet somehow, a smouldering twinkle escaped from between his eyelashes, "when exactly do you think you first met Hajime?" 

Atobe thought carefully about how to play his next move, "When I come to think of it, it WAS middle school," he said, cautiously turning his eyes to Mizuki, "I'm sorry, Mizuki," he said, doing nothing to alter the baby hedgehog's prickliness, but easing off the prickliness of its mother at the very least. "We were at a tennis training camp. We--" he cut himself off, and watched Mizuki, hoping for encouragement that didn't come, but Mizuki's mother said,

"Ahh, the bath," and nodded knowingly. Atobe tried to speak but she said, "Oh yes, we've heard that story many times! How a pure love soaked through you both in the cleansing waters of the rose bath, yes, a romantic story!" Atobe closed his eyes, his forehead aching from the strain of being drawn tight and crinkling at the nose. There wasn't much pure about that encounter, in his own memory, nor was there much about love, but Mizuki was still exhaling loudly for attention, and the true details were not really a dinner table topic.

Mizuki's father reached out to put his arm around his wife's shoulders. "You see, Keigo, this farm has belonged to the Mizuki family for generations -- my father, my father's father -- there's always been an orchard on this land, going back hundreds of years. I myself have been farming since I was a baby," he paused to laugh, and was oddly silent until Atobe laughed in response, "and Hajime there, has been farming since he was a baby." 

"Oh but, my little pumpkin is too good for all that!" Mizuki's mother said, turning her fluttering eyelashes to her husband, "I love the farm, and I love you, honey muffin, but the family business just isn't FOR Hajime!" Mizuki's father reached out and patted the back of her hand. 

"Of course, I understand that, pet -- and when you came into my life --" He turned to Atobe, "My father took this little orchard and really turned it into the business it is today, the only way you really can with a farm like this: hard work. It was thanks to that, I was able to develop my passion for song," he held his palm outwards in front of him, letting it glide through the air slightly as he spoke. "What I've found, Keigo, is that when you're a talented man, you don’t need to get by on good looks," he spoke now with a dismissive wiggle of his eyebrows that Atobe noted, and stored up to remain affronted by in the future, "even a wrinkled old raisin like me can capture the heart of a lovely young thing like my wife, here." She clicked her tongue and flicked her wrist at him, clearly thrilled.

"Oh, snuffle bunny!" She said, putting her hand on his cheek and leaning in for a delicate kiss, which they performed with exaggerated mwah, mwahs! Atobe winced, and how much older was Mizuki's father? Was she Mizuki's real mother? Was this one of those awful, tasteless marriages showcased all the time on those dreadful reality shows about the nouveau riche? They pulled apart, and Atobe stiffened his shoulders so they wouldn't notice his disgust. "When I first saw you on that stage, I just knew it was the same silly Mizuki-kun I knew in high school!" She bit her lower lip and turned to Atobe, "We used to pass notes to each other under the desk! And now look at us!" She clung to him and giggled. 

"That's right," Mizuki's father said, gazing down at his wife, "I know you must look at us like a couple of old fogies, but we're not much different to you! We still look at each other like we're teenagers, don't we, sweetie?" 

Atobe rested his chin on his hand and sank low to the surface of the table. Many nights, most in fact, Mizuki and he slept in entirely different rooms of the house -- entirely different wings, actually. The rare nights they shared a bed, Mizuki would slather his face in some kind of pest-repellent moisturizer and then shut out Atobe on all fronts with his blackout eye mask and ear plugs. Atobe had, and often did, spend more titillating nights together with a crossword puzzle than he ever did with Mizuki. "I somehow believe we are not as similar as you may be imagining," he said, voice as flat as a wall he was craving, to smash his head into. And Mizuki slapped Atobe's arm. 

"Don't embarrass me in front of my parents by putting your elbow on the dining table!" He hissed. Atobe straightened his back, and picked up his wine glass, only to remember it was empty. 

"May I have a refill please?" he said, holding his glass out, utterly defeated.


	2. Chapter 2

And a chime, mimicking the call of Big Ben, rang through the house. "Oh, that's the door! That'll be your sisters, Hajime!" Mizuki's father got to his feet, "Angel, if you wouldn't mind refilling Keigo's glass, I'll go and greet the girls." She nodded and topped up Atobe's glass. 

"Oh, we're going to need another bottle now the girls are here!" She clapped her little hands together with excitement, and the housekeeper, who had been cooking in silence in the corner of the room the entire time, wiped her hands on her apron and disappeared through a door. "Oh good, she's going to the cellar now! She always picks out the most excellent wines," Mizuki's mother had a dreamy tone to her voice, but she snapped herself out of it, "I wonder if that's where that '98 vintage went?" But she didn't wonder for long, because she broke out into a high pitched squeal and clattered her stilettos over the tiles in little fairy stomps, running with her arms outstretched. 

Atobe turned, and there was a small woman, with cutesy pigtails and a glittering smile; beside her, a taller figure, with the characteristic Mizuki-black hair pulled back into a severe bun, one little wave of fringe creeping out over her forehead. The first wore an oversized coat and a skirt that was inappropriate in its shortness, if only because they were a good month into winter already. The second lady was in a neat, iron-straight black suit, with a starched collar shirt so white it was blinding in the contrast to her funeral attire-come-business suit. Mizuki's mother put her arms out to embrace them both, and flicked her dainty ankle upwards in the air as she leaned into them. Mizuki's sisters. Atobe turned to try to get a look at Mizuki's reaction, but Mizuki was leaning over -- elbow right on the table -- covering his face with his hand. Atobe opened his mouth, but--

"Hajime!!" Came the squeal of the smaller woman, but both of them crowded Mizuki's seat, nearly pushing Atobe right out of his to get access. They poked and prodded at him, pinching his cheeks and pulling his hair, and gushing with their lips pressed closed in an incredible imitation of their mother. "Hajime, it's been so long! Why don't you ever visit me?" said Pigtails. 

"That's right, I keep wanting you to visit so we can talk strategies," said Bun, "you know how I value your insights into business scenarios!" 

"Business scenarios?" Atobe scoffed, taking another swig at his wine. The three siblings turned to stare at him. 

"This is your eye candy, right Hajime? What was his name?" Pigtails looked earnestly at Mizuki, as if Atobe were incapable of speaking for himself. 

"Atobe Keigo," Atobe said, with a sharp look at the three of them, lingering especially on Bun, who can't have failed to have heard of him, if she were in business. There was a pause. Then Mizuki cleared his throat. 

"This is my Atobe-kun, yes. But we're calling him 'Keigo' tonight, apparently," Mizuki raised his eyebrows and checked his fingernails, "can't stomach it myself, though, in all honesty." 

The sisters hummed, "I think I'd rather call him Candy," Pigtails said, clearly defining the point when Atobe decided asking after their names would be meaningless. She clapped him on the shoulder, "How's it going, Candy? Still Hajime's favourite whipping boy?" she said. 

"Favourite?" Atobe said, through narrowed eyes and what was by now a pounding headache. The siblings looked at one another and gave their shrill harpy laugh. 

"Oh no, Candy thinks he's special!" Bun said, fingers pressed over her lips. Mizuki chuckled in that cotton-wool way, the type that made it sound like he'd forgotten how to sneeze properly, and patted his sisters on their backs. 

"Let's not make Atobe-kun feel uncomfortable, he is the guest here, after all?" He suggested. The sisters nodded. "Atobe-kun, you know one as respectable and pure as myself," he placed his hand in a grand gesture over his overly-purple shirt, "could only ever stand to have one whipping boy in my life," and he smirked and let his sisters titter at his joke. 

Atobe heaved a sigh. There was a mean glint in Mizuki's eye which reminded him who asked for this trip -- Atobe had been quite happy to pull Mizuki's tiny frame against his own body, wrapping his arms around Mizuki and kissing the little waves of black hair. And in the rush of whatever madness he had that night, perhaps that particular champagne, or maybe food poisoning? In that heady mix of after dinner but before bedtime, Mizuki's perfectly moisturised hands had felt soft when he'd held them, and the delicate rose scent that came up warm from under Mizuki's cardigan seemed so appealing. Mizuki was appealing in his quips and in his lack of protest, and the grand mirror on the wall had reflected them together, and in that awful moment Atobe had thought -- Yes. Atobe had said, I must get to meet and get to know your family, it must be done! We must go as soon as possible, he had said that, and in the morning when Mizuki's tiny feet were ice cubes on his legs, and Mizuki's eyes were daggers and Mizuki's words were spite, he'd forgotten. Atobe took an unrefined swig from his wine glass and willed himself to forget the whole thing, if possible, forget who he was, where he was, and above all, forget Mizuki. 

But there was no timely blackout, so Atobe said, "Of course, dear," in the most unkind tone he could muster without the sisters picking up on it and hanging him out to dry. 

Stiletto points rang out on the tiles of the kitchen floor, and Atobe turned to see Mizuki's mother clasp her hands together, "Ohh, see, I knew you'd be thrilled to see your little baby Hajime again!" She gasped, and her lips looked wet under the light as they parted, "I should take a picture!! Hold on, don't move for mummy, mummy will be right back!" She pointed the tips of her black varnished nails towards them and then skittered away as quickly as her heels would carry her. 

Mizuki's father passed her as she was leaving, hands in his pockets, eyebrows raised. He nodded his head after his wife, and Pigtails said, "She's getting the camera!" 

"Aahh," Mizuki's father said, and he removed his hands from his pockets with a pleasant-sounding jingle, as if there were keys or money down in his deep pockets, and held his gnarled hands out in the direction of his daughters. "Girls, let me take your coats! You look as though you're not staying." Atobe bit down on his tongue and screwed his eyes shut, sending another prayer out to the cosmos. 

"Well of course we're staying, daddy!" Pigtails said, undoing the duffles of her coat, and Atobe came as close as he ever had to hating himself in that fleeting moment. The girls shrugged off their outer coats and laid them onto their father's arms with movement so precise and cute, Atobe was suspicious to how practised they seemed. The girls looked up at their father with warmth, and his little twinkling eyes shone down at them, and even Mizuki leaned back in his chair with a smile that seemed somehow less affected, at least for a moment. 

"I'll put these away, but don't you sit down! Daddy needs a hug first!" Atobe's nose ached with the attempt to stop him from spitting his drink. And now Mizuki's father is calling himself 'Daddy'. The whole experience was like drinking wine from a cardboard case. 

The clomp of boots receded as the clatter of heels intensified, and both stopped short somewhere out in the hall. "Oh, snuggle muffin, where are you going now? We're about to have a family photograph!" 

"I'm just putting the girls' coats in the cloakroom, I won't be two shakes!" and then came the nauseating echo of those exaggerated smooching 'mwah' noises. Mizuki's mother shuffled back into view, her smooth and shining calves and knees sweeping against each other as she made her tiny fairy steps, and she held a camera up in her hand, waving it at them. 

"I've got it! Photo time!" she said, with a delighted shriek, which her daughters joined her in, stamping their feet against the tiles in headache-encouraging excitement. Mizuki stood up with a grand sweep of his body, pulling down at his shirt and shaking his head by the smallest degree to neaten the curls of greasy fringe on his forehead. And with his nose held aloft and two grand, striding steps, he took his place between his sisters, who plumped up their pouts and brightened their eyes, and waited for the lens to beep. Mizuki's mother took the camera up towards her face and beamed at it, stroking the back of the digital display with the tip of her nail, "oh mummy's little darlings, look how grown up you all are!!" Her dusky eyes screwed shut and she fanned those dark, poisonous talons at her face. 

"Ohh, mummy don't cry!" Bun said, breaking the siblings' photograph pose to reach out towards her. Mizuki's mother nodded, sniffed loudly, and in a voice that was squeakier than strictly necessary said,

"Oh, I know! But I'm just so proud of you! You're all so beautiful!" Mizuki's father entered the kitchen behind his wife, and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders as she whimpered. But feeling him beside her, she breathed out, and said in a voice that was quite calm, "Oh, honey, now you're here let's get a picture of the whole family -- Cookie," she said, and the housekeeper downed her ladle and wiped her hands on her apron, "Cookie, would you--? And of course, Keigo, we can't be leaving you out!" Atobe jumped in his chair and looked over his shoulder at her. Her panda eyes were squeezed shut into a smile and one of her claws flicked at him, beckoning. 

Atobe cleared his throat, and got to his feet with every inch of dignity he could muster. He swept the shoulders of his blazer, and fastened up the buttons at the bottom, and then moved around the dining chair he had been sitting on and moved to join them. Mizuki's mother was holding the camera out. He blinked. And the housekeeper bustled her way between them, taking a place on the far side of Pigtails, patting a wrinkled hand on her shoulder and giving a toothless grin. Mizuki's mother stretched her hand out, with the camera in it. 

"Keigo? Be a dear?" she said. Atobe took the camera, and instantly, with two free hands, Mizuki's mother clapped her little palms together and squealed, positioning herself behind her children, and in her husband's waiting arms. "Ready!" She chimed, and Atobe held up the camera with trembling hands. 

"Say cheese," he said, devoid of any soul he had been born with, and held down the shutter button. The Mizukis said cheese in their harmoniously held notes, and Atobe squeezed the button -- without waiting for green squares to capture their faces -- but found the finished image to be quite clear all the same. He tisked at it, and then the Mizukis burst into laughter. 

"Ohhh, Keigo, I can't believe--" Mizuki's mother began, and they rushed around him, patting his shoulders and giggling. 

"Poor old Candy, he looked so upset didn't he!" said Bun, and Pigtails squared her shoulders and pretended to sweep dust off them. 

"When he--" and she mimicked a stiff, prideful pout, "preening, like," and she impersonated him further, walking a few paces to really nail his character. And through it all, Mizuki laughed as hysterically as Mizuki was capable, wiping away tears from the corners of his long eyelashes with his dainty fingertips. 

"Atobe-kun thought we were serious, poor little thing!" He said, and Atobe felt a cloud of rage darken his brow. 

And Atobe's expression remained stormy, even as Mizuki's mother apologised through pursed lips and a smirk she couldn't seem to hide. He remained thunderous, even when the housekeeper announced the dinner, and followed up with a tremendous wheeze and a wet-sounding, hacking cough into her ungloved hands, before passing out the dinner ware. Atobe remained fuming, so that he had to chomp down on his teeth to stop himself from serving up a piece of his mind along with the starter, and he felt the hot air he breathed out of his nostrils disturbing his million dollar hairstyle. He stopped himself. Atobe stared down at the food, wondering what on earth it was, or what it was made from, and how it was possible for a single housekeeper to be expected to fill the role of an entire kitchen's staff and thereafter produce anything even remotely edible -- and he stopped himself. That little soft hand landed on his forearm as silent and pale as snow falling in the orchard outside. Atobe looked at Mizuki. 

"My word, what a face," Mizuki said, low enough to go unnoticed by his family under the general chatter of dinner. "Dare I say it, but it looks a little bit like the ice king might be losing his cool?" Mizuki's voice had the same casually scathing, political quality to it that it usually carried, but maybe there was a softness, where the tacky mood-lighting (dimmer switches, sickeningly nouveau-riche!) made a twinkle in the darkness of Mizuki's eyes. 

Atobe scoffed at him, but careful not to attract the attention of the circling harpies that made up the rest of the Mizuki clan. "What are you talking about, Mizuki." Mizuki raised one of his delicately pruned eyebrows and hummed. 

"My mistake!" he chuckled so gently that it made almost no noise. Mizuki removed his hand from Atobe's arm, and with most deliberate care, removed his napkin from its ornamental ring and shook it out in front of him with a flourish that snapped at the air. He tucked a corner of it into the purple maw of his shirt collar, then picked up the gleaming silver table knife and held it up, turning his face this way and that, checking his reflection in it. "I should have realised," he said, to the tiny rectangular copy of himself, "after all, we do not get heated, do we, Atobe-kun?" Mizuki's eyes slid to the side, flashing at Atobe in a glance that mocked him even as it warned him against further transgressions. 

Atobe straightened his back in his chair, and took out his own napkin, as he watched Mizuki. Every now and again, that black flash of thinly veiled something returned to Mizuki's face, and Atobe took his time tasting it. Yes, there was a challenge in it; and, as Atobe righted himself to a proper, dinner-worthy posture, it being a challenge changed everything. Out on the tennis court, winning meant winning in the mind, winning over your opponent's mind. Seeing through them. Atobe showed Mizuki a curt smile, and imagined that fragile skeleton beside him, sipping tea and laughing without humour. And Mizuki, such a one for his pathetic little games -- quite charming, all in all, quite charming -- how had Atobe not seen through this? 

Mizuki's father led the table in raising their glasses in the air. "A toast," he said, and then he paused, the twinkle just below his bushy eyebrows becoming philosophic when he added, "To the state of things." They all waved their glasses vaguely in the direction of each other. "The state of things, yes. Isn't that right, Keigo?" Atobe had already let his glass come to his lips, and was in danger of taking a sip of it, when he heard his name. He held his glass aloft again in a hurry that put a drop of wine into his… soup? Broth? Stew? --into his starter. 

"Absolutely," Atobe said, feeling Mizuki's challenging stare upon him, and willing himself not to falter. Mizuki's father, with a look of grim knowing on his face, nodded as if in agreement: as if there had been anything with which to agree. Mizuki's mother pursed her lips and nodded along with him, and Bun gave a hearty, hear, hear! But then silence fell over the table again. Atobe could see his wine glass quaking in his outstretched hand and he scowled at it, as if that had the power to steady it. 

"In fact, Keigo -- as you are a learned man, a man after my own heart -- would you care to say a few words for our little," Mizuki's father turned the wine glass in his hand in tight circle in the air, "get together here?" Atobe scrunched up his face, pursing his lips and putting out his free hand in the universally understood gesture of, oh no, I couldn't possibly, you're too kind! But Mizuki's father raised his eyebrows and said, "I realise this meal of ours is rather humble by your standards, I don't mean to embarrass you." 

By anyone's standards, but then Atobe swallowed hard (but he couldn't swallow any wine, much to his chagrin), because he now had to say, "I would be honoured!" and he had to say he was honoured, specifically because Mizuki's father had absolutely meant to embarrass him. Atobe glanced down at the table cloth and cleared his throat, and felt Mizuki settling into his seat beside him, ready for a good show. 

"The state of things, absolutely," Atobe said, with a nudge of his glass in the air. He paused then, to think, and the Mizukis mistook it for a meaningful statement and tipped their glasses to one another. "I um. Yes. Perfectly honoured to um. Say a few words…" They waited, but the silence that Atobe lapsed into trailed on, and Atobe chewed his lip. There was sweat, clammy on the back of his neck, ruining his best dinner shirt, and colder than Mizuki's little feet in the middle of the night. "They say," Atobe began again, haltingly, and the rumble of his voice startled Pigtails so much, she gave away she had been drowsing in her chair. "They say that a man… is not defined by his wealth," Atobe made sure to look at them all, and nod at each of them, in turn, with a grave expression. He then shook his head, "Well, and I say that… that's the state of things nowadays." He vaulted his glass a little higher in the air with so quick a flourish that a droplet of it was suspended perfectly above the glass for an instant, "Cheers!" he said, and he downed his glass. 

The other five glasses remained suspended in the air by five puzzled hands. The Mizukis frowned from one to another, until Mizuki's father piped up, "Did you not agree with me earlier, Keigo, when I remarked that the state of things is such that we can all… enjoy this moment here together?" Five pairs of eyes moved to Atobe. 

"A-absolutely!" 

Mizuki's father laughed warmly and scratched at his grey curls with an idle finger, "Pardon me for even suggesting this, Keigo, but you do seem awfully preoccupied with wealth!" 

He would've spat out his drink, straight out, and all over Mizuki's father opposite him, had he not genuinely been raised properly, unlike his trashy company. "I was of course referring to the wealth we find in the people we love and surround ourselves with," he gave a quick tilt of his empty wine glass, and turned specifically to Mizuki, specifically to cock an eyebrow at him and say, "darling." through such clenched teeth that the period was almost audible. 

"Oh, please," Mizuki said, pulling his glass towards himself all of a sudden, "I wouldn't imply your love was anything of such great value," he drank his wine, and then added, "Darling." 

There was a real cold snap to the air then. The windows had gone black, but for the snowflakes falling thick and cushioning the window ledges outside, stuffing up the corners. Atobe stared blankly at his yellowed reflection in the darkened glass, and reeled off in his mind every possible misstep he had made that had led him to this scenario. Mizuki sipped his wine with such a perfect air of ease and grace that Atobe almost -- almost! -- let the throbbing in his chest become a form of hurt. Yes, Mizuki was masterful, but we wasn't the master. Oh, yes, he could play a game or two, and Atobe turned in his seat so his whole body faced Mizuki. The expression on Atobe's face was one of puzzlement, of amusement, and something, growing just in the depths of his heart, yes, some part of him felt a dim and distant respect for Mizuki, and it showed in his eyes. 

"You… almost had me," Atobe said, in an earnest tone, "genuinely, Yours Truly nearly…" 

"Had you?" Mizuki said, raising his eyebrows in an interested smirk, "Had you in what sense, pray tell, dear, Atobe-kun?" 

"Magnificent. Well played," Atobe said, and he rushed his wine glass to Mizuki's until it rang in the room, "Cheers to you." 

Mizuki chuckled -- because even when he desperately wished not to, he was powerless to resist a compliment -- and he flicked his little hand out at Atobe and clicked his tongue. "My Atobe-kun is an odd fellow, isn't he, mother! I haven't the slightest idea what he means!" 

"Oh, poopsie, you know what he means!" She leaned forward and pressed the very tips of her nails into his arm, "I expect we now know what you two have planned for after dinner!" Mizuki's mother said this with a sleazy crackle which deepened her usually shrill voice, and followed up with a dirty giggle which Mizuki's sisters and father followed her in. Atobe's eyebrows contorted all of their own accord, and he waited for Mizuki's shriek of horror and disgust. 

But it didn't come. 

Atobe turned back to Mizuki but he was looking bashfully away, primping up the little waves of his hair with one hand and smiling. "…Gosh," he just said, at length. Gosh. 

Atobe's mouth was open. His jaw fell straight open, dragged down so much by the gravity of Mizuki's little shy glances, under his long, dark eyelashes, that Atobe felt the hinges at the side of his face creaking in pain. His eyebrows, too, scrunched together with so much pressure that he felt the veins on his temple sting and throb. What?? This had to be a joke. This had to be another, impossible turn to Mizuki's scenario. Or, no -- the whole clan of them, with their shimmery black hair and tacky-tastefulness, with their fingertips pressed to their lips as they laughed at Atobe -- this was all a setup. These were not the Mizukis. Mizuki was not Mizuki. From the start this had been an elaborate hoax from a desperate business rival who -- Atobe's head whipped around the room, looking for hidden cameras in wine bottles and light sockets -- this was all a trap to embarrass him. 

"Oh, Keigo's a red-blooded man, after all," said Mizuki's father, and Mizuki's mother whistled like a coarse and base street-kitten who'd never learned her manners. "Save some of that appetite for dinner, won't you?" Mizuki's father chuckled. The sound had good humour to it, but it was incomprehensible. Atobe turned his face of utter disgust onto him and said, huh?? "Your food, man, you'll never get to the end of dinner if you don't eat dinner!" 

The food. Atobe looked down at the starter dish. The soup-or-whatever. It hadn't tasted half as bad as Atobe's breeding had taught him it would, but now he peered into the blackish dregs at the bottom of the plate and searched it for powder or residue of any kind. He slammed his hands down on either side of his placemat and pushed his face down, as close to the plate as he could, and the Mizukis coughed and said, my word! And averted their gaze. 

"Err, Cookie, is the main ready yet? I think… I think poor Keigo here looks a mite… hungry…" Mizuki's father said, with a furtive sip of his wine. 

"What is this…" Atobe said, in a whisper, "what is going on…?" and there was a significant crunch from below the table, and it was Mizuki's gleaming dinner shoe grinding into Atobe's one-of-a-kind designer boot. 

A soft, high-pitched voice coughed its way into the conversation, "Um, Daddy. I know what we should all do after dinner!" Pigtails clapped her little hands together, turning her head to catch everyone's eyes with the swishing of her wavy black bunches, "We should have a song together!! How long has it been since we all got to sing together?" 

"Ohh, my lamb, that's a wonderful idea!" Those grey caterpillar eyebrows descended over Mizuki's father's eyes, which disappeared as his face contracted genially. "Hajime, you will of course, lend us your talents?" Mizuki was already tapping his fingers against his throat and coughing. 

He's going to duck out of it, thank God! Said the wild grin that fell over Atobe's face, He'll make an excuse to end dinner early! 

But Mizuki opened his mouth, and a long, laaaaa, flowed out of him. He coughed, and then, laa, laaaa! Atobe felt the way his face was stuck was going to cost him, either in early wrinkles or early fillers, and he didn't know which meant the greater social death. "I think I should be alright, Father. Oh dear, it is so terrible, I really haven't practiced in a long time!" He giggled in a self-conscious way, in a self-conscious way that was completely false, because Mizuki would never willingly denigrate himself. "I hope I can keep up with you, Father, and my dear sister." He nodded at Pigtails, and she pawed out a hand towards Mizuki, which had no chance of reaching him, but seemed to have an effect regardless. "My sister is a singer, too, you know!" Mizuki said, puffing out his chest as he looked at Atobe under his eyelids. 

"Oh, I don't know if you can call me a singer," she said, stressing the last word, and biting her lip in a way that didn't spoil the pearly-pink shimmer, "I'm more of an… international sensation," she fidgeted with her fingers and giggled. 

"Really," Atobe said, knowing well it was his time to speak, but his turn was thankfully over soon enough.

"Oh yes, my princess has just had her debut album shoot up the charts!" Mizuki's father put his hand on his daughter's shoulder and shook her with affection. "She's one talented little pumpkin!" 

"Come now, Daddy! I didn't do it all by myself!" She blinked at him, and her eyelashes fanned in the exact same Mizuki way that had caught Atobe off guard moments earlier, "Your industry friends were all super nice to me and they taught me so much! Especially after your donation to the record company!" 

Mizuki's father laughed and turned to Atobe with a kind of expansive gesture. "Well, you can't put a price on success, now can you?" 

Dinner rolled on, and rolled out, and Atobe rolled over. He ate without tasting, laughed without humour at every last one of his hosts' jokes (most of which were made at his expense), he drank without ever moistening the uncomfortable dryness at the top of his mouth. Several times, he dipped his hands below the table to soak the sweat off his palms onto his napkin, and every time he did this, Mizuki flashed him a dismissive look and gave a nasal little hum, like a particularly sarcastic bee. Atobe took it, he took the jibes at his business empire, at his dress sense, at his upbringing. One specific comment Mizuki made about "the size of his estate" seemed, in its reception, not to be about property at all. But Atobe drank his wine, and nodded weakly, and checked his watch as often as he dared. As soon as the situation allowed it, he would call on Kabaji to extract him from the house as soon as possible. 

And, just as that moment seemed to arrive, as dinner was cleared away, and the after dinner spirits were poured, Mizuki spoke up. "Father, shall we proceed to the drawing room?" There was a consensus, and Mizuki's father leapt out of his seat to offer his hand to his wife, kneeling down like a Medieval knight with his lady, and she gasped and put her hand over her breast, her long dark nails looking like a huge spider was about to climb up her neck. The sisters had skipped away, the housekeeper was cleaning; this was his only chance. Atobe's hand was already on the inner pocket of his dinner jacket, reaching for his phone, when he felt a wiry little arm around his shoulder. "Atobe-kun, is something the matter? I will show you the way into the drawing room."


	3. Chapter 3

Atobe froze, shoulders stiff. He turned his face by the smallest possible degree and peeked at Mizuki. Mizuki caught his expression and laughed, slapping Atobe's back with a faint touch, but when Atobe's face didn’t change, he stopped laughing. There was actually concern, a little ripple of concern in those expertly shaped eyebrows, and that soft little hand started to rub gentle circles into Atobe's back. 

"Atobe-kun? Are you not enjoying yourself?" Atobe opened his mouth. There was a whole world of indignation inside him, ready to leap out and grab Mizuki by the throat, at the merest suggestion that such a question even had to be asked. But Mizuki went on, a laugh in his voice, "I… have to admit, I think I was wrong to be worried about coming here," he glanced away and laughed softly with closed lips, "in fact, I'm enjoying myself rather a lot tonight. So I'm glad, I'm glad you convinced me to do this." 

There was a joke in this somewhere, and, like most of the jokes tonight, it was surely on Atobe. He stared, with a blank face and a blank mind, at Mizuki's warm, dare Atobe even suggest, loving look. The arms that usually resisted Atobe, tonight embraced him, and Atobe thought about it. He thought about Gosh. And a raucous explosion of voices la-la-laaa-ing in another room, warming up, shook them both out of it, and Mizuki patted Atobe's shoulder to get him moving. 

"Come, now, Atobe-kun, you wouldn't dare disappoint my parents by making them wait, now would you?" Mizuki wound both his hands around Atobe's elbow, and they walked through the house with their bodies pushed together, almost as if they were very much in love, and Atobe's mind was reeling with the whiplash. 

The drawing room was incredibly western, and it had all the hallmarks of a fine and traditionally masculine aesthetic, with its dark drapes and varnished wood. Perfect, up until Atobe's dinner shoes sank into a richly piled, richly purple carpet, emblazoned with pink and green flowers and fruits. The way the soft piling attempted to swallow his shoes the further into the room Atobe travelled, felt like a fitting consequence of him ever having met Mizuki. He envisioned the purple and pink fronds swamping him, coming up to his neck while he strained to keep his head above the chintzy death trap, and knew that even as he thought to himself, this is it, this is how I die, he would notice that the murderous carpet was devilishly soft and certainly expensive, even if it was in bad taste. Mizuki's hands squeezed at Atobe's elbow, and he looked at Mizuki, and he thought, this is it, this is how I die. 

"You noticed the carpet?" He laughed in that breathy way that Atobe hated because he loved it, "This was my present to Mother and Father for their wedding anniversary! Isn't it darling!" 

Mizuki's family were gathered in front of a large fireplace, which was crackling pleasantly behind them and lending them all a hellish red-orange glow. Mizuki's mother was at the centre, her husband standing just behind her, arms around her waist, and Pigtails and Bun leaned over at either side, trying to catch a glimpse of the paper in their mother's hands. Mizuki released Atobe's elbow with a kind of grace that made it feel like there was still a lingering, gentle press right at the bend in Atobe's arm. Somehow, Mizuki trotted towards his family in easy, quick steps -- as if he knew exactly how to tame the mystical carpet-swamp, and would ever be quite safe from its hungry clutches. Atobe took an unassisted step further into the room and felt his frame wobble. 

The family whispered with each other, and Atobe caught silken snippets of their fine voices discussing, Now, which one?, and, No that's well below my range!, and, You must be joking, darling! Atobe let it wash over him as he picked his way through the heavy carpet towards a very fine-looking leather-studded armchair. He had just managed to drop himself into its waiting arms, reflexively shaking his ankles to free them from the mire of a carpet, when an excessively shrill voice made him dig his fingernails into the expensive armrests. 

"Excuse me, Atobe-kun! What, pray tell, are you doing?" Atobe raised his eyes, weary, reluctant, and observed the clan of demons afore their fiery gateway to the underworld, each one with sharp black eyes piercing through his skull. Except for Mizuki's father, whose greying caterpillars for eyebrows kept his eyes discreetly from view -- nevertheless, Atobe could infer the malice. "You mustn't just sit there! We are to sing together, as a family!" Mizuki stuck his perfect, pointy little nose high in the air.

"Keigo," Mizuki's father said, with a laugh on his breath that was all reproach, "come now, man. Are you not Hajime's significant other? Are you not family?" This last word, he said with special emphasis, intended perhaps to convey that acceptance among the ranks of these hell-harpies was, in fact, a coveted thing. 

"Oh, no," Atobe began with a shake of his head, bouncing his perfect curls in the movement, "My singing voice is claggy after a glass of wine or two," he grasped at his throat with a performance of distress, sliding his fingers over the bump of his adam's apple, "I don't want to show you up!" 

"Nonsense, Atobe-kun," Mizuki said in his light chuckle, but in the twitch of his gentle smile, Atobe remembered all the times he'd been raucously drunk, serenading Mizuki with a powerful showmanship and affection, and Mizuki had simply criticised his terrible voice. "You must! I insist!" He paused to let that move Atobe, and when Atobe remained as still as a deer, caught in the headlights of a particularly ostentatious and particularly purple car, Mizuki added darkly, "We all insist!" 

Animal instinct, fight or flight, got Atobe to his feet without his conscious control. "If you say so," he replied hoarsely, and cast his eyes down to watch the placement of his feet on the dangerous carpet. He didn't raise his eyes, and in those tense moments, Atobe heard nothing but the ticking of a grand clock and the crackle of the fire. And then he heard Mizuki, with a tone of decisive malice, say, "Father! This song, I think absolutely it must be this song!" and then, mumbled consensus. When Atobe was in arm's length of Mizuki, he clasped onto his hand desperately and stumbled towards the group. Mizuki raised a pitying eyebrow, "Perhaps you ARE drunk," he said, and turned his face away in a disappointed sigh. 

"Ready?" Mizuki's father glanced down the line, and the pale hand that held the song book flashed it a little further in Atobe's direction, but it provided no real information. "One, two, one, two, three, and--" 

In one spirit the whole family took off, Pigtails had lead vocals, Bun and Mizuki's mother providing support, and Mizuki and his father harmonising. It was rehearsed, it was perfect. It can't have been decided on a whim! Atobe felt Mizuki's elbow sharp in his ribs, and with an intense glare that showed the whites of his eyes, he was encouraged to sing. Sing what? He tried to feebly mumble along to the tune, but the tune veered away from his expectations line on line, and he was attracting evermore furious glances from his beloved. Finally, when all family members sang as one, and Atobe's jibbering stuck out like a monkey camouflaging itself in the ranks of demonic sirens, Mizuki cried, STOP, and the whole cacophony ended with Atobe's foolish whimpering trailing out unexpectedly behind. 

"Atobe-kun, do you not know this song?" Mizuki clasped a hand over his breast. Atobe could see, behind his brown eyes, glittering with surprise and sympathy, made warm and intimate by the fire's glow, that three more pairs of pretty brown eyes reflected the same disbelief. And one pair of grey caterpillars… caterpillared. Atobe shook his head. "You do not know this song!" Mizuki repeated, incredulous. "Of all the, the… uncultured--" 

"I practically only listen to classical music!" Atobe exhaled hard out of his nostrils, deeply wounded. 

"By God, he's a real snob!" Mizuki's father broke in. Mizuki's heavy lashes fluttered closed and he nodded in contradictory agreement. "So you don't know this song, Keigo? You really don't know it? Never heard it in your entire life?"

Atobe grasped for a life line, "I, I'm sure… It sounds beautiful… I'm simply so busy--" A horrified gasp and, Too busy!, repeated in a devastated hush by Mizuki's mother. "It's surely very well known, and it's just I that have never, chanced-- But don't you all sing it frightfully well!" 

"Of course," said Mizuki's father, "Since I wrote it for us." Atobe stared. Then, narrowed his eyes. Then blinked hard and watched little glowing sparks of light behind his eyes. Then he opened his eyes again. "It's a family song. Our family song." 

"Too busy to hear our family song!" Mizuki's mother said, choked with sobs.

Atobe's angular eyebrows contorted and twisted as he tried to follow the logic of their twisting arguments and pranks, but his mind was exhausted and blank. So he laughed. He simply threw back his head and laughed so loud that the heavy walls of the dark drawing room rang quite pleasantly with it. Despite themselves, and turning their faces away to conceal it, the Mizukis were laughing through their closed lips too. "Pardon me," Atobe said, still trying to catch his breath, "Hajime never taught me your song!" He gave Mizuki a playful shove, which would have been less playful if he had not always preserved in his mind a horror for the very concept of ever harming him, "What is this, embarrassed? Hajime, embarrassed? Come now!" He slipped his arm over Mizuki's (quietly horrified) shoulder, "My Hajime, hide his talents from me?"

Mizuki stared at him. Atobe waited for his reply, and got nothing. He shook Mizuki lightly by the shoulder and laughed a little on his breath, and got nothing. So Atobe frowned again, and began to mutter, Dearest?, when Mizuki suddenly turned his face towards the fire. Well, that fire makes just about everything seem red! Except maybe the whites of Mizuki's eyes which were--- wait a minute? "A-Atobe-kun," Mizuki said, clearly floundering in distress. His face was bright red. Atobe slipped his arm carefully away and waited. "You address me so… familiarly!" he said, trying, so it seemed, not to seem overjoyed. 

Hajime. My Hajime. In that moment it had spilled so naturally from Atobe's lips, but now he had time and space to consider, yes, it was indeed the first time he had said it aloud. Perhaps because he had been called Keigo all evening; or perhaps because the house and style of this family was western; or simply perhaps because everyone else had said Hajime so much that night that he was deceived into thinking it was perfectly natural, he had said it. He wanted to taste it over, to say it over again, to see how he liked it -- but he knew he liked it. Never for all the time, but just here and now, impossible, demanding, scheming Hajime, fighting always for the upper hand with him, even in the dark, warm intimacy of his family home, of his fireside, of the winter evening. 

"Poopsie," Mizuki's mother said, breaking the heavy silence finally, "Mummy is so very tired, you know how mummy gets!" She planted the back of her hand over her forehead in a pretend swoon, "I am so terribly glad you're home that mummy needs to lie down, I think. Kiss, kiss, darling; show our Keigo up to your room, won't you?" She said. She leaned in to Mizuki and kissed the air beside his cheeks, but Mizuki was stock still, and merely mumbled, Goodnight mother. 

So Mizuki's father, chivalrous to the last, scooped up his wife and carried her off into the house. And Pigtails talked about calling her agent, and Bun talked about calling the office, and all of them making their short and sweet excuses, left Atobe and Mizuki to the privacy of the fireside. 

Mizuki stood, half-turned towards the glow of the ornate fireplace, a hand softly resting on his chin, deep in abstraction. Atobe heard the soft closing of the drawing room door behind them, and took a step towards Mizuki. A confident step, for just now, the magic of the perilous carpet had been tamed, and those vines seemed to move aside for Atobe's every commanding step. He stood a little distance from Mizuki, and then, after a few more moments of the ticking clock and the comforting blaze of the fire, he reached out a soft hand and placed it on Mizuki's shoulder. Mizuki all but jumped at the touch. He turned to face Atobe, chewing ever so slightly on his usually-perfect thumbnail, chest heaving in the fire's glow. 

Atobe reached up a hand for Mizuki's, drawing it away from his mouth, and simply held it in the space between them. Mizuki glanced down at their joined hands, like he wondered what on earth they could be, and then he looked up into Atobe's eyes. Atobe saw the warm, smooth brown, dancing with life in the firelight; he saw a soft --terrified-- but sincere expression; he saw all of them so clearly. Hajime's weaknesses. Atobe stared at him, taking him in like he was one of the Seven Wonders, and feeling suddenly like the King he knew himself to be, one who could reach out and take anything he should so desire, and there would be no resistance. No, not even from Mizuki. The gold in Mizuki's usually darkened eyes was El Dorado, and he held all its worth inside his hand. 

He clenched his free hand, then released it, and reached out for Mizuki's face. There was no screech or sneer of derision or disgust. It landed, cool against the soft burning of Mizuki's cheek, and Mizuki trembled at the touch. It was now. It had to be now. Atobe slipped his arm around Mizuki's waist and pulled him down, down onto the bed of the soft, carnivorous vines which softened to receive them both. They sank down together beside the fire, arms criss-crossed in a confused tangle, but it left their bodies close. Mizuki's every breath now was a heavy sigh, that Atobe felt stirring on his neck. He allowed himself one, one little smug smile, and then he did it. He leaned over Mizuki, a hand sweeping around to the small of his back, and supporting him into the flow of his kiss. He drew it out, slow and wet, the kind Mizuki always said was disgusting and unhygienic, but here he was, moaning so very quietly into Atobe's mouth. And when they drew apart, Mizuki looked cross.

Atobe smirked and drew Mizuki to him. That face said, I don't want to stop, but I don't want you getting a big head about this. Hahaha, too late! Atobe chuckled, and Mizuki knitted his brows and reached up a hand to Atobe's face. Atobe watched him.

"Well?" He said, hoarsely, "Kiss me again, you utter fool!" His angry huffing breath was toasty on Atobe's face.

Atobe laughed. "Stupid!" he said, and Mizuki was flustered, furious, and absolutely desperate to be kissed, but just as desperate not to let himself go. No, he would tolerate it.

He tolerated another kiss. He tolerated quite a few kisses, actually. The almost plasticky tang of Mizuki's sensitive lip balm, melting on Atobe's tongue. Mizuki didn't like French kissing, but it was his tongue that slipped between Atobe's teeth. Atobe raised his eyebrows in amused surprise, and broke away to let Mizuki sit with the consequences of his desire. Instead, he went about the task of sucking and nibbling Mizuki's pale neck. He gasped and said, "Atobe-kun!!" and pound a fist against Atobe's shoulder, but he also stretched his fingers and drew them through Atobe's hair with a soft little, ahhh! Then Atobe carefully slipped his hand under the buttons of Mizuki's VERY expensive dinner shirt, so the buttons would unloose, but not break! And having exposed the sensitive, skinny little chest, tried to see if he'd tolerate a kiss or two down there. "Atobe-kun! This-- aah!-- This is-- nn-- This is so inappropriate! This is my parents' --nnghh!!" 

Atobe licked his lips and smirked up at Mizuki. "Have you ever been carried up to bed like your father carried your mother?" 

In an intense hush, Mizuki said, "PLEASE, do not mention my father and mother right now!" 

"Here we go, little kitty," Atobe said, scooping up Mizuki in his rather bedraggled state, supporting him with an arm under the shoulder and another arm under the bend of his knees. "If you would be so kind as to direct me to your suite, my Hajime, ahn?" 

"Don't speak my name with that filthy mouth!" Mizuki snapped, but with his arms wrapped around Atobe's neck, snuggled into his chest. "First on the left," he mumbled, and Atobe bent down and kissed his scalp. 

Their night together was heavy, unforgettable, undeterred by the relentlessly frilled and floral, purple décor of Mizuki's childhood bedroom. They'd entered the absolutely pristine, tidy room, in a passionate stumble; trying to kiss and undress and lock the door and hold Mizuki to Atobe's body all at once. They staggered against dressers and ceramic knickknacks thudded ominously to the floor; something small bounced and rolled from the vanity and smashed into tiny, half-seen, glass pieces. Atobe near tripped on the very expensive (VERY tacky) rug and got his black shoe polish on the edge tassels. With this momentum he threw Mizuki onto his bed, completely squashing and scattering the throw pillows, so they seemed to take off like the gaggle of geese, with whose feathers they were stuffed. Atobe crawled hungrily on top of Mizuki, reaching for the fasten on the trousers of his dinner suit, when Mizuki struck his chest and said "Shoes!!!"

Atobe laughed as loud as he could, and in a voice that was deliberately audible he said, "Well, I'm so sorry, Hajime," and kicked them off, even as he knew they'd both regret those scuffs later. 

Yes, with the moonlight reflecting off the thick snow outside, and Mizuki's legs curled hard around Atobe's hips, together they let out all the tension of the long car ride, the dinner, the expectations and disappointments of Mizuki's family. Atobe felt like an athlete again, like a king, like a star. He'd risen from the ashes of a severe browbeating, and now Mizuki writhed beneath him, a puppet in his palm once again.

But in the sober grey light of the morning, clouded sky reflecting off even whiter snow, stinging through the large window that Mizuki had uncurtained with some violence; in that grim, cold morning Atobe felt the change in the air. He lifted his head from the pillow, weak and squinting, and Mizuki's back, silhouetted in the window seemed so… intimidating. "Good morning, my little Hajime," he had barely finished the words before a stormy glance was thrown at him like a dagger piercing his chest. He tried again. "What time is it, Mizuki?" Mizuki scoffed, and turned his face out to the whiteness. 

Atobe shifted the heavy purple throws aside, and stepped out into the freezing air in all his nakedness. Well, the cold never bothered him, anyway. He stepped quietly to Mizuki's frame, eased his hands over his shoulders (covered decently and warmly by a luxurious gown), leaned in and kissed Mizuki's cheek. Mizuki started and shrugged him off, taking a palpable step towards the window. Atobe could see now, that he gazed at the rows upon rows of skeletal trees, black lines in the snow, each branch weighed down with powdery precipitation. "Well, isn't that scenic?" Atobe said, and with quick but ill-considered reflection, added, "Not as scenic as the face of Yours Truly, of course!" 

Mizuki, with lips pursed in absolute fury, wheeled around to face him. "You disgust me!" he spat, and then stormed over to the en-suite and slammed the door. 

Atobe somehow managed to find his way to the family bathroom, showered and dressed, without the assistance of his usual team of people. It was fine, actually, but a little lonely. He turned off the water and thought wistfully about a sexually satisfied Mizuki allowing him to share in his morning shower. And then he shook the droplets of water from his face. Of course not, this was MIZUKI. Atobe dressed, and made his way down to breakfast. The dining room had been a buzz of conversation, which hushed immediately as he entered. All eyes turned to him, but not in the good way they usually did. He tried to remain aloof; scanning the room with a questioning look, he took a seat in the chair he had taken dinner in the night before, and snapped his fingers. 

The room stared. 

Atobe looked around with frantic turns of his head. "Cookie?" he said, and the household Cook stopped right in her tracks, as if frozen to the spot by his familiarity, "Cookie, bring me a coffee, if you would?" he said, and settled himself comfortably into the chair. She turned very, very slowly to look at him, then all at once scurried off and slammed a door behind her. The Mizukis averted their eyes and pushed their breakfasts around their plates with their forks. Atobe waited some 20 minutes before he gave up on the coffee. 

It was around this time that he realised it wasn't just the coffee that was missing from the table. "Now wait a minute, where is Hajime this morning?" Again, silence descended on the table. Eventually Mizuki's mother cleared her throat, as if she was greatly reluctant to speak at all. 

"Poopsie has gone for a walk." A walk? "I said, Mummy's little Angel needs to eat! But little Poopsie wasn't hungry, took only a croissant, and went out into the cold!" As she spoke, her voice trembled, and if it was possible to see her eyes beneath her incredibly long and incredibly black eyelashes, Atobe supposed he would have seen the beginnings of some distraught tears. 

Atobe blinked. "Did he say where he was going to?" At this question, Mizuki's mother became so overwhelmed that her fork dropped to her plate with a loud ringing sound, and she sobbed audibly. Pigtails pushed her chair back with a loud scrape and rushed to soothe her mother. She looked up over her mother's bent form and glared at Atobe. 

"Hajime's taking a walk in the orchard," she said, and under her breath she muttered, "where else, dummy?" 

"The orchard?" Atobe pointed vaguely to the scene outside the window, "You mean, out there?" 

"No I mean the indoor orchard!" Pigtails wrinkled her nose as she spoke to indicate that he was uneducated. Although that was clearly and emphatically not the case. "No wonder Hajime is so tired of you!" There was something about this offhand comment that really stung. Tired? Of Yours Truly? And even so, why should one such as Atobe care for such an opinion. In no sense would that be anything other than Mizuki's loss. Still, a particular something, a very uncomfortable feeling squirmed in his chest, and he rose to collect his overcoat and boots.

Mizuki's shallow, slender prints in the snow were already filling up with fresh flakes, but Atobe kept his eye keenly on whatever marks were there. He lurched through the snow, crunching heavily up the little hill that led away from the Mizuki's personal yard and out into their farmland and orchard. "MIZUKI!" he yelled, but his voice got eaten up by a howling gale. He grasped at his open overcoat to try and shut it out. The cold SOMETIMES bothered him, but rarely. This was a rare occasion, that's all. 

The orchard was nothing more than simple black rows of naked trees, with pure white aisles of snow between each of them. Atobe stopped at the first aisle to catch his breath, and it smoked out in front of his face. He blew sharply into his ungloved hands and rubbed them together, and then glanced up at the heavy white sky. The storm was surely worsening. Atobe once again strode on through the snow, pacing down the side of the orchard, and stopping at each gap in the trees to check for signs of Mizuki. The heavy snowfall erased what little of his tracks were left, and when Atobe called out for him, the wind and the trees simply echoed back at him.

The flurrying snow grew thicker right before his eyes, and Atobe, at a loss for what else to do, sprinted off down one of the powdery paths between the cherry trees, their branches weighing ever more heavily with fresh falling snow. Now the only sound he heard was the wind whistling at his red-raw ears and the crunching of unstable snow beneath his feet. And, more faintly, the memory of Mizuki's voice repeating, "You disgust me!" He carried on, through the storm, reluctantly admitting to himself that the cold was definitely uncomfortable, even for him, and the deeper he went, the deeper his feet sank in the snow, and the deeper he reflected if it wasn't stupid of him to carry on like this. He tires of you, that trumped up little kitten for a sister had said as much, and he knew exactly how to deride and exhaust Atobe at every turn. Mizuki undermined his authority, intelligence, ego… and even his romantic efforts, even his attempts to show affection. And, as the cold stung at his fingers, he realised he was here, right now, because of one steamy moment in a bathtub, an accidental underwater brush of the skin that went too far, the strong scent of roses gone to his head. 

And, Atobe thought, after all, he was tired. Fighting Mizuki at every stage was just like fighting his way through this freezing cold headwind. It took all of his energy just to take a step forward, and all the time, he was met with constant, frigid resistance. Yes. Atobe's boot slipped, and for a moment he embraced the snow beneath him. He thought about getting up. 

"You disgust me," Mizuki's voice reminded him, in his head, "you are an imbecile!" Atobe sighed heavily. Yes, as always, you're right. "You utter fool! Don't close your eyes!" Atobe blinked and frowned, trying to remember when he was scolded for closing his eyes, "You lazy so-and-so! I should come out there and slap you! Don't give up when you're so close!" 

Atobe sat up slowly, shielded his eyes with one hand, and squinted through the thick snow. Up ahead of him-- maybe just a few feet, not terribly far at all-- he perceived a wooden hut that was laying thick with the snow. There was a faint yellow light from a small window, and a dark figure, wrapping his arms around his chest, and yelling out of the doorway. "Get up, Atobe-kun, for heaven's sake!! Your investors will hear of this if you're not careful, you know!!" 

"Mizuki…" Atobe turned over in the snow, and with great difficulty shunted forward on his hands and knees, until he had a strong enough footing. Then he dashed at the door, and held his arms out for Mizuki. Mizuki caught him and held him tight. They leaned against the lodge door and closed it shut. 

"You imbecile!" Mizuki scowled, stroking the snowflakes out of Atobe's hair, "why on Earth did you wait so long to follow me?" 

Atobe frowned. "You were waiting?" Mizuki groaned and rolled his eyes.

"I gave strict instructions to my family-- never mind that! You need to get out of your wet clothes, you'll catch your death!" Mizuki peeled the soaking overcoat from Atobe's shoulders, shook it out, and then hung it on a coat hook on the back of the door. Then he went back for Atobe's sweater--

"Wait, wait, am I dreaming this? Since when have you been so eager to undress me, ahn?" Atobe managed a weak smile, and Mizuki tisked at him.

"If you keep saying things like that, you'll be undressing yourself!" He fussed and huffed as he took off Atobe's shirt, and then hung it up on a little chair by the small fireplace -- oh, this small hut has a fireplace? -- and then Mizuki came back to unbuckle Atobe's belt. 

"Woah! Mizuki!" Atobe crossed his hands over his crotch, breaking Mizuki's hold of the belt, "It's still cold in here, if you strip me naked, I'll be cold again in no time!" Mizuki closed his eyes, slowly, so slowly his eyelids fluttered and twitched with irritation. 

"You still have not realised where it is that we are?" Mizuki said, raising his eyebrows in despair, "Are you that delirious from the storm?" Atobe took the hint, and glanced over Mizuki's shoulder. The other half of the hut was… a bath. More than that, it was clearly a hot spring. Inviting steam lifted off the surface and drifted lazily into the air. Beside the edge of the stone bath, there was a little hamper, popped open with breakfast foods and refreshments. There was also a little pail full of rose petals. "Now would you like to continue wearing these snow-drenched clothes, or will you be joining me in the hot spring?" Atobe blinked at him, then he blinked at the spring. Then he whipped off his trousers as fast as he could. 

Enrobed in the warm caress of the spring water, surrounded by the sweetness of roses, Atobe's mind began once again to order itself. He lifted a strawberry out of the hamper and held it out towards Mizuki's mouth. Mizuki wrinkled his nose, "Have you washed your hands lately?" 

"Mizuki, we're in a bath…" Atobe threw the strawberry at Mizuki's face and it bounced off him and fell with an unattractive 'plop' into the water. With a noise of great disgust, Mizuki picked up the strawberry carefully and threw it out across the hut. "So, you planned this, for Yours Truly?" He tried to sound casual about it. 

"Get over yourself," Mizuki said, turning to find his champagne glass full of orange juice, "I simply wanted to visit my family's hot spring while I was here, that's all." He sipped delicately, and Atobe puffed out his lips.

"Then why did you wait for me?" 

Mizuki tried not to do a spit-take, and then he tried not to reveal that the orange juice had gone up the back of his nose, but it almost certainly had. "Well! After that appalling show at dinner last night, I couldn't well leave you all alone with my family! They'd surely have eaten you alive." Mizuki pretended to examine his nails.

"Were you worried about me?" Atobe laughed, incredulously, and the sound of it echoed in the hut. "Then, gosh, why didn't you stand up for me?" he chuckled about it. As if! Mizuki gets as much joy out of teasing him as anyone. Probably the most of anyone, in fact. 

Mizuki drew his long, pale leg up out of the water, as if he was examining his toes, and the rose petals flurried around him as he broached the water. "I was waiting for you to stand up for yourself," he said, coolly, but his lips were puckering. Trying not to laugh about it. 

"Yeah, right," Atobe said, and his laughter broke open the floodgates for Mizuki's chuckles, too, "It's okay, it's not like I don't enjoy our little sparring matches either." He put his hand out and drew Mizuki's head a little closer and kissed his dewy hair. "But you know, I would never dare disrespect your family, no matter how they treated me," Mizuki looked up at him, and anticipating his reply quickly, he said, "no, really, I wouldn't-- we may be cut from a different cloth, we may have different… prejudices about each other… but even so, they love you," he took a breath like he was going to finish that sentence, but suddenly he didn't. 

Mizuki sat quietly, stewing on that unsaid thing for some time.

When the storm had calmed, and they were refreshed and dried, they skipped out together down the rows of cherry trees, laughing joyfully, hand in hand. Then, as they approached the house, Mizuki coughed and snapped his hand away with a mean expression. He folded his arms and stuck his nose in the air, and made his way back into the house alone, with Atobe trailing after. They entered into the dark drawing room, less heavy in the light of day, and all the Mizuki clan turned their faces quite expectantly at them. 

"Poopsie, are you alright!" Mizuki's mother tottered to her feet in today's pair of ridiculous stilettos, and rushed to squash Mizuki's flushed face, "Did your stinky Keigo upset you? Shall I have him sent away?" Mizuki tried to gently bat her hands away, and then with more and more force as she resisted him. 

"Mother! Stop it!" She released him and stepped back, her frightful spidery eyelashes swatting rapidly at him, "Atobe-kun… Keigo… You mustn't treat him this way any more." 

The room was silent, but Atobe treated himself to a quiet little fist pump of victory.

"Treat him how, Hajime?" asked Mizuki's father. Mizuki's shoulders dropped and he groaned. 

"You know how!" He closed his eyes, and kept them closed for a few long seconds, "And besides, he knows. You see, don't you? He knows what you've been doing." 

All the Mizuki clan turned their faces to Atobe and then looked back at Mizuki. "But, Poopsie," his mother began, jumping forward to clasp Mizuki's hands in hers, "when you write, you always tell Mummy what a terrible, selfish, ignorant, pigheaded oaf he is!" 

"Mother! Please!" Mizuki hissed, "He knows you are simply protective of me because you love me," he stressed these words quite mechanically. "Right? So there's no need to keep being rude to Keigo. Alright?" The family glanced at Atobe again, and then back at Mizuki.

"We were just being protective," Bun offered. Mizuki's father nodded.

"Can't be helped, you are the son and heir of course!" 

Pigtails twirled one of her pigtails in one of her fingers, "Yes, when Hajime told me he was tired of you, he didn't really mean that he was tired of you, he simply meant that he was tired." She didn't really try to make her expression soft or cooperative at all, "But not tired of the relationship! Ohhh no, just tired of, you know, being fabulously rich and having a handsome partner at his beck and call… oh but not, tired of YOU." 

"Sister… please," Mizuki said, through his clenched teeth. 

"Well," Atobe said, still reeling from the whiplash, "Glad we sorted that one out. It's good to clear the air, ahn?" 

Without turning around, Mizuki said in a strained whisper, "So help me God, I will end you."


End file.
